About Me

An enthusiastic teacher turned librarian turned support engineer, I have a diverse background and broad interests. While primarily working with web technology, I have interests in general computing and technology, instruction, accessibility, information management, technical services and metadata, and documentation among others.

I am always on the look out to improve existing services and implement new ones. While not a programmer or developer, I like to learn and I am not afraid to work with and dig into code. My methodology is very much user oriented in all my projects and work (at least as much as possible), and my aim is to improve the user experience and quality of life (at work) for team members.

Outside of GitLab, I mentor students as part of the UBC Arts Co-op Students’ Association mentorship program, which is a one-on-one mentorship program, mostly helping students with their applications, interviews, and professional development. I also mentor through the Aspire mentorship program by Support Driven.

I am also a proud mentor as part of Canada Learning Code (formerly, Ladies Learning Code), a non-profit that holds technology workshops. Mostly, I volunteer for HTML/CSS, web design, WordPress, and Teachers Learning Code, but have also mentored in Photoshop and Hack-a-thon workshops.

Last but not least, I help with organizing conferences and workshops whenever and wherever I can (see the list below).

You can follow me on twitter or find me elsewhere through about.me.

Current Employment

Staff Support Engineer (previously: (Senior) Support Agent, (Senior) Support Engineer) at GitLab (2018 – Present)

  • Engage and solve customer problems via email and video conferencing.
  • Understand and debug at an expert level.
  • Collaborate with engineers and the GitLab Community to escalate and fix bugs, and build new features.
  • Liaise and work alongside and across other teams to define and shape goals, priorities, and strategy; collaboratively improve the software, processes, and user relations; and deliver on projects relating to customer experience and success.
  • Write in-depth documentation and clarify communications that share knowledge and radiate GitLab’s technical strengths.
  • Mentor, with focus on levelling others up to Senior, and train other members, especially in areas of expertise and new features with office hours, pairings, deep dives, and more.
  • Build and iterate efficient processes.
  • Identify and work on significant projects that result in substantial cost savings or revenue increases.
  • Contribute to internal tooling/projects.
  • Assist in hiring by reviewing assessments, and performing interviews (both in and outside of Support); and onboarding of team members.
  • Participate in the GitLab.com Incident Management rotation to provide 24/7 emergency customer response in coordination with the Production team.

I also freelance and consult in various areas as time permits, including

  • accessibility,
  • web services,
  • user experience,
  • metadata and technical services,
  • automation and workflow,
  • documentation and technical writing,
  • and project management.

Most Recent Previous Employment

  • Accessibility Consultant: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Report for City of Gulfport, Florida (2018)
  • Manager of Technology and Technical Services at the New Westminster Public Library (2016 – 2018)
    • Oversaw day-to-day operations in technical services, technology, and assist in other areas.
    • Managed acquisitions for library collections including e-resources.
    • Managed vendor relationships and contracts related to technology, technical services, and acquisitions.
    • Ensured cataloguing and classification of materials balanced industry standards with the needs of library users.
    • Managed public facing technology overall.
    • Liaised with City IT staff regarding technology used in the library.
    • Made recommendations to the Leadership Team regarding the need for emerging hardware, software, and technology services for the public.
    • Managed and administered the library’s integrated library system.
    • Coordinated and managed reports and statistics relating to technology and technical services, or originating from the ILS.
  • Other professional experience includes website redesign/development, web accessibility, user studies/user experience, accessible digital and physical materials, supervision, collaborative software (namely wiki) implementation and administration, information management, reporting, research, planning, collection management, reference, and instruction. For details, please see my LinkedIn profile.
  • Other previous experience include teaching, research support, tutoring, office/clerical support, and customer service.

Current and Recent (2 years) Volunteering

  • Mentor, Aspire by Support Driven (2019 – Present)
  • Mentor, UBC ACSA (Arts Co-op Students’ Association) (2014 – Present)
  • Mentor, UBC Online Career Mentor (via Ten Thousand Coffees) (2018 – Present)
  • Mentor, Canada Learning Code (previously, Ladies Learning Code) various workshops including HTML & CSS, Web Design , WordPress, Hack sessions (2012 – Present)
  • Organizer, Access Conference (2020, 2021)
  • Mentor, BCLA Mentorship Program (2013 – 2021)
  • Past volunteer work involved organizing and volunteering at tech events, peer reviewing, and mentorship.

Recent (2 years) Presentations & Articles

Education

I finished my Master’s in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) at the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS) in December 2011 and officially graduated in May 2012.

Previously, I completed a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and Psychology, then a Bachelor of Education, but began as a student in Software Engineering and Mathematics (at what is now SFU Surrey, but used to be TechBC).

Selection of Work

My previous presentations, articles, and blog posts cover accessibility, web technology, library services, managing projects and teams, and work/community culture. Since continually adding to the list will get too long, a selection of all blog posts and externally published work is below, broken down by topic, then in reverse chronological order:

Work/Community Culture & Similar

Project Management & Workflow

Accessibility

(Web) Design, Development, User Experience & Usability

Technical Services, Library Collections, & Metadata